Vintage Roman Headstone Uncovered in NOLA Garden Deposited by US Soldier's Descendant

This historic Roman grave marker recently discovered in a garden in New Orleans was evidently received and abandoned there by the granddaughter of a US soldier who served in Italy throughout the second world war.

Through comments that all but solved an global archaeological puzzle, the granddaughter shared with regional news sources that her grandfather, Charles Paddock Jr, stored the ancient artifact in a cabinet at his residence in New Orleans’ Gentilly district until he died in 1986.

The granddaughter recounted she was not sure precisely how Paddock ended up with an item listed as lost from an Italian museum near Rome that had destroyed most of its collection because of wartime air raids. But Paddock served in Italy with the US army during the war, wed his spouse Adele there, and returned to New Orleans to build a profession as a singing instructor, the descendant explained.

It was fairly common for military personnel who served in Europe in World War II to return with souvenirs.

“I assumed it was simply a decorative piece,” she stated. “I didn’t realize it was an ancient … artifact.”

In any event, what she first believed was a nondescript stone slab ended up being handed down to her after the veteran’s demise, and she placed it down as a garden decoration in the garden of a home she acquired in the city’s Carrollton district in 2003. The heir overlooked to take the stone with her when she moved out in 2018 to a pair who found the object in March while removing overgrowth.

The pair – scholar Daniella Santoro of the university and her husband, the co-owner – recognized the item had an inscription in the Latin language. They contacted researchers who established the item was a tombstone dedicated to a around ancient Roman seafarer and serviceman named Sextus Congenius Verus.

Additionally, the group learned, the headstone matched the description of one listed as lost from the city museum of Civitavecchia, Italy, near where it had first discovered, as an involved researcher – University of New Orleans expert the archaeologist – explained in a publication shared online recently.

The homeowners have since turned the headstone over to the FBI’s art crime team, and attempts to repatriate the artifact to the Civitavecchia museum are under way so that facility can exhibit correctly it.

O’Brien, who resides in the New Orleans community of nearby town, said she recalled her grandfather’s strange stone again after the archaeologist’s article had been reported from the global press. She said she got in touch with journalists after a conversation from her previous partner, who told her that he had seen a news story about the item that her ancestor had once had – and that it actually turned out to be a artifact from one of the planet’s ancient cultures.

“We were in shock about it,” she commented. “It’s just unbelievable how this came about.”

Dr. Gray, for his part, said it was a relief to learn how the Roman sailor’s headstone traveled near a house more than 5,400 miles away from its original location.

“I was really thinking we’d have our list of possible people through whom it could have ended up here,” the archaeologist stated. “I didn’t anticipate discovering the exact heir – making it exhilarating to uncover the truth.”